I thank
thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hidden these things
from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes; yea, Father,
for such was thy gracious will.

Chapter V

THE WILL OF GOD

There was nothing the prodigal son
could have done, in the course of his life in the far country that would
have pleased his father. Had he lived an exemplary life instead of
a dissolute one; had he lived in peace with all his neighbors and promoted
peace in his community; had he become very successful through honesty,
hard work and persistence; had he lived an extraordinarily moral life to
the point of perfection; had he become a faithful husband and parent and
sired beautiful, well disposed sons and daughters; had he given all his
wealth to the poor and provided for orphans and the homeless; had he become
a great national leader who brought peace and prosperity to the far country
– none of it would have pleased his father, to whom he was in any case
dead. His father wanted absolutely only one thing of him. The
one and only thing that he could do to please his father was . . . come
home! He had immigrated to the land of the dead and the lost where
he could do nothing and be nothing except dead and lost. When at
last he arose and went to his father's house, he had done the one thing
that pleased his father, whose great joy was precipitated by the sight
of the returning prodigal.

Why? Because the dead had returned
to life, the lost had been found! Furthermore, there was not a single
word of rebuke concerning the dissolute life he had lived or the fact that
he had squandered his inheritance. The very most he had dared hope
was to be received as a hired servant. Imagine his shock when he
began to realize, in the midst of all the joy and the great celebration,
that he was again invested as a son with full privileges!

The Father's exclusive will

This has to tell us something very profound
about the will of God our Father – that, insofar as we are concerned, He
wills one simple thing: come home! This and nothing more! But
if our will, like that of the early Prodigal Son, is to pursue life in
this world, our far country, we are dead to the Father and nothing we can
do here either pleases or displeases Him. All attachments or devotions
we have to this world – to its persons and its institutions – are bonds
that secure us from turning to the Father's house. This includes
our attachments to our earthly families – our parents, our spouses, our
children. This includes our attachments to the state and nation.
This includes our attachments to life itself. That is why Jesus couched
his Great Principle in the strongest possible
term: hate. It is only the one who hates parents, spouse, children,
and one's own life, who can be a disciple (Luke 14:26). It is the
one who hates life in this world who can receive life eternal (John 12:25).
That results from the fact that the will of the Father is eternal life
and has no fulfillment in terms of temporal life.

Jesus' Use of the Expression, Will of God,
or of the Father

This is a supremely radical interpretation,
and one cannot accept it on the sole basis of inferences from a single
parable. Let us now investigate Jesus' use of the expression, "will
of the Father," or equivalent expressions, to see whether he otherwise
confirms this conclusion drawn form the Parable of the Prodigal Son.
We will focus on the following utterances:

For I have come down from heaven, not to
do my own will, but the will of him who sent me (John 6:38).

2. Pray then like this: 'Our Father who
art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be
done, on earth as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:9,10).

3. Not every one who says to me, 'Lord,
Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my
Father who is in heaven (Matthew 7:21).

5. For this is the will of my Father, that
everyone who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life
and I will raise him up at the last day (John 6:40).

I repeat for emphasis that the Father wants
only one thing, absolutely one thing only – that we arise and go to him.
So, Jesus defined the will of God:

This is the will of him who
sent me, that I should lose nothing of all he has given me, but raise it
up at the last day. This is the will of my Father, that everyone
who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will
raise him up at the last day (John 6:39,40).

This is the final, absolute and definitive
expression of the will of God. The Father's will, therefore, pertains
only to the resurrection when his children rise to be with him, in the
Father's house, precisely as the prodigal son arose and went to his father.
God's will has no direct relevance to this world. Thus, and only
thus, could the Prodigal perform the Father's will while in the far country.
He was outside his father's will until he resolved in his heart, I will
arise and go to my Father. That arising – that resurrection – to
go to the Father is the will of God in its totality. It is clear
that the Father does not want his children to be in this world, and there
is therefore nothing we can accomplish in this world that will please him
except this arising to go to him. He wants us in his house with Him,
in His Eternal Glory, just as the prodigal's father wanted the younger
son to return to Him.

There was absolutely nothing the Prodigal
could do, in the far country, to please his father – except to make that
wonderful resolve to arise and go. So likewise, there is absolutely
nothing we can do here in our far country to please the Father except to
arise (in the resurrection) and go to him, or to do what contributes to
this end. When Jesus taught the disciples to pray, "Father, thy will
be done on earth as it is in heaven", this is the only thing he had in
mind. Jesus, in his last hours, precisely like any human being, was
mightily tempted to avoid his terrible death and so maintain his bond to
this world. It was this restraining bond that would have prevented
his going to the Father that he struggled mightily against in Gethsemane
when he prayed, "Father, not my will but thine be done."

His struggle was exactly the same as
is ours – the struggle against the temptation to save his life in this
world, and so to lose life eternal. So, the cross symbolizes the
victory of the Son of God over the temptation to save his life, just as
it symbolizes the commitment we also must make if we are to have eternal
life with the Father. But, thanks be unto God that he claimed the
victory and arose to be with his Father. That our struggle, and our
temptation, is exactly the same as his he made perfectly clear when he
said,

If any one would come after
me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me (Luke 9:23).

And,

Whoever does not bear his own
cross and come after me cannot be my disciple (Luke 14:27).

Jesus did not die on the cross instead
of us, but for us; not as our substitute but as our leader, showing the
way. We each must bear his own cross and follow him.

Our Father in heaven loves his children
and he wants all of them to be in his house with him, sharing with him
in all good things. That is the only will of God to be considered
by us, for that is all he has shown us in Jesus. That is the only
thing he wants of us or for us. Then it follows that the only way
we can be in his will, or do his will, is to want the same thing for ourselves.
This puts us in the state of the prodigal son on the day he came to his
wonderful resolve, "I will arise and go to my father."

The New Testament Greek word translated
"arise" is anastasis, and comes from the same root as the word that
is translated resurrection. Only by his resurrection, by arising
to go to his father, could the prodigal son do the will of his father;
in like manner, only by arising to go to the Father, in the Resurrection,
can we do the will of the Father in heaven. Recognizing that we must
nevertheless live out our time on earth, lest we be tempting God (Deuteronomy.
6:16, Matthew 4:7), the only way we can do the will of the Father while
we remain here is by the maintenance of a commitment to the Resurrection.

This commitment to the Resurrection
is contrary to any commitment to anything in this life or in this world.
When this commitment is valid and complete, all our treasures are in the
Father's house; all we value is in the Father's house; all our family relations
are forged in the Father's house and we want only to go there. We
therefore hate our lives in this world, as mandated by the Great
Principle. Then, we want exactly the same things for ourselves
that our Father in heaven wants for us. Our wills conform to his
will and we are righteous in his sight. Indeed, unless and until
we come to this state of mind and heart, loving the Father and wanting
only to go to him, we are, like the prodigal son, both dead and lost.
That is why he who loves his life loses it (John 12:25).

When Jesus said, " . . .for I have come
down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me"
(John 6:38), it is this will of the Father that was in his mind.
He proceeded immediately to define the Father's will, not once but twice,
and in both cases the definition is completed by the statement, I will
raise him (it) up at the last day. The Father's will is therefore
completed by our arising to go to him, and by nothing except our arising
to go to him. Here is Jesus' double definition in its totality:

For I have come down from heaven,
not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me; and this is the
will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has
given me, but raise it up at the last day. For this is the will of
my Father, that every one who sees the Son and believes in him should have
eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day (John 6:38-40).

Jesus could do the Father's will only by
holding to the Way of the cross, the Way that led through his cross to
the Resurrection to the Father in such a public manner as to demonstrate
to the world that this is the only way to the Father. If we would
have eternal life and share in the glorious realm of the Father's house,
we must each take up his or her cross and follow in that way.

When we want for ourselves only what
the Father wants for us, then and only then are we in his will, then and
only then are we righteous before him. And he wants only one thing
of us: come home!

Satan's Temptations

Satan interceded early to prevent, if possible,
Jesus doing the will of the Father on the earth. So he tempted him
to give himself to the passions of his flesh: Command these stone to become
loaves of bread (Matthew 4:3). Then he tempted him to cast himself
down from the temple. This is the suicide temptation, and would have
been tempting God, or putting God to the test. Finally, he offered
him the kingdoms of the world. Again, Jesus was not interested, because
he knew that the Father was not interested in building a kingdom on the
earth. He resisted all these temptations because he knew that the
Father was only interested in his returning to him and bringing with him,
through the Resurrection, as many brothers and sisters as possible.
So Jesus' only concerns were in losing none of the children the Father
had given him and in bringing the children of God home to the Father through
the Resurrection. To accomplish the Father's will, which he came
to earth to do, he must teach us God's will; and since it is so unique,
it was necessary that he demonstrate its significance to us through the
cross and resurrection. Therefore any desire on his part to prolong
or to save his life in this world was the opposite of the Father's will.

When his hour was nearing he announced
to the gathered disciples what was afoot and that he was to be taken and
crucified. Naturally, Jesus recognized the temptation of Satan again
when Peter objected saying, "Lord, this shall never happen to you" (Matthew
16:22)! It was a simple temptation to save his live, and so to lose
it, and he fired back, Get behind me, Satan (Matthew 16:23)! I was
long puzzled by the severity of this rebuke. Peter was only expressing
his concern for his Lord's welfare, or so it appears, and one is led to
ponder why this identifies him with Satan until the realization comes as
to the crucial issue that was at stake. Had Jesus been influenced
to save his life by Peter's show of concern, he would have become but one
more prodigal electing to pursue his fortune in the far country.

Jesus was subject
to all the temptations that are common to man. To
satisfy his flesh, to exalt himself among men as King or simply to save
his life so as to live in this world a little longer – these worked to
prevent his doing the will of the father on earth, which he had been sent
to do. He must have prayed often and fervently for the Father's will to
be done, which he had come to earth to do, and in addition, he instructed
his disciple to also pray for the Father's will to be done on earth, even
as it is done in heaven (Matthew 6:10). With Jesus' definition
of the will of the Father in mind, we see that he could only have been
asking them to pray for him, that he might prevail against all temptation
so as to do the will of the Father in this world.

The most terrible temptation came during
his agony in Gethsemane, when he was mightily tempted to seek his own will
rather than the Father's by saving his life. Father, let this cup
pass away from me (Matthew 26:39)! But he overcame Satan again in
this final battle of the spirits so as not to save his life but only so
as to endure the cross and go to the Father. He concluded each repetition
of the petition with the overcoming request,

Nevertheless, Father, not my
will but yours be done (Luke 22:42).

This is that will of the Father that he
came to earth to do and that we are all put here to do. I say again,
the will of the Father is this arising to go to him – this and nothing
more.

The churchmen bear a heavy burden for
having closed their ears and minds and hearts to the words of Jesus so
as not to understand this will of my Father. They have persistently
led us in the recitation of this Lord's Prayer, thy will be done, on earth
as it is in heaven, defining the Father's will, either implicitly or explicitly,
as something we can do in co-operation with the Father to alter human life
on earth. This results in trapping the minds of men and women
in this misconception. So they go about seeking to build a kingdom
of God on the earth, to perfect individuals, government and society in
the name of Jesus and of God, and so to bind themselves to the earth and
earthly endeavors, all in direct opposition to the will of the Father.

In Christendom we have this multitude
of churchmen vigorously endeavoring to build the kingdom of God on the
earth, when all He wants us to do is to lay down our tools and come home!
Or, we have this other multitude of churchmen who are eagerly awaiting
the return of the Lord to set up his kingdom here on the earth, who are
missing the kingdom that has already come on the earth.

Now I will say it once more in the hope
that some one will hear and respond to the Father appropriately: the Father
has absolutely no interest in our activities on the earth. He is
not even concerned about who wins wars. He wants and wills only one
thing, and absolutely one thing – come home! So it is that the prodigal's
father wanted only one thing from him, the very same thing – come home!
It's a family thing! A loving father wants his children safe in his
house. He does not want them to do anything on earth, this far country,
and nothing that we can do here pleases him, except for this one thing:
resolving to arise and go to the Father and holding firm to that resolve.
This is the will of God as Jesus did it, so fulfilling his purpose in coming
to earth. This is the will of God as we must do it, and if we seek
to do anything else as the will of God, we will never do it on earth as
Jesus did it and as it is done in heaven.

I have emphasized the simplicity of
Jesus' gospel throughout, and here it is in its simplest, clearest form
such as children readily understand – a loving father wants his children
to come home. We are willfully disobedient when we are in any way otherwise
minded. It is this that the Father has revealed to children through
Jesus but has hidden from the wise and understanding (Matthew 11:25)!
We now are in a position to see clearly what Jesus meant when he uttered
the following sayings:

Not everyone who says to me
'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will
of my Father who is in heaven (Matthew 7:21).

And stretching out his hand toward his
disciples, he said,

Here are my mother and brothers!
For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother, and sister,
and mother (Matthew 12:49,50).

Nothing that we can say to him is of any
account unless we want to go to him, which is to do the Father's will.
We want to go to him out of love for him who is our Father (the Great Commandment),
and to leave the earth to that end (the Great Principle),
and so to be his children and the children of no one other than him.
The Father then lovingly and joyfully embraces us as his children, and
we are, among ourselves, but brothers and sisters and mothers (no fathers),
all bound together in the family of the Father. So Jesus says,

For who ever does the will
of my Father in heaven is my brother, and sister, and mother.

Jesus came to do the will of the Father
and to teach and demonstrate it so that we can also do the Father's will
on earth. We do it by following Jesus in taking up our own crosses
in the hatred of life and the love of the Father. That's
it!